Autumn
by flippedeclipse
Summary: It's always been Shepard's favourite season. Drabble, Shakarian, post-war fluff.


So, another kinkmeme fill :) It's a short one, pretty much a drabble, but I figured someone here would enjoy it. I've got a few like this floating around on the kinkmeme and I might compile them into one volume, we'll see. For now, have some more Shakarian! This one was inspired by a beautiful, beautiful prompt about autumn, hence the name, and the imagery really caught my eye. I've always loved fall so I had to give it a try, and, well, it came out a little cotton-candy fluffy :P I hope it's still an enjoyable read though :)

Here's the prompt:

_Astronomical autumn started just several hours ago. _

_I love autumn. I love the vibrant energy of the warm sun on my face, chilly breeze blowing through my clothes and the vegetation falling to sleep until the spring._  
_I love the soft melancholy of the season and cold mornings and hot coffee and I love the scarves and light coats._  
_But most of all, I love the colours. The perfect contrast of green and yellows, the oranges, reds and sometimes the purples and greys._  
_I absolutely love autumn._

_Could I please have a fic about autumn?_  
_Something soft and fluffy like my scarf, warm and comfortable like my biker leathers? And happy, in the end? Fun and playful and colourful. Just like autumn is to me._

_Don't care for pairings. All I care for is the feelings._

* * *

Autumn

* * *

It really is a perfect day.

He's not used to the chill, it never quite reached this temperature on Palaven, but still, he's comfortable. The trees reach higher than he can see, leaves fall freely onto the ground around them in a gentle, slow shower. It's late, but not too much so, the sun's just beginning to set.

He never expected Earth to be quite this colourful. She explains that it's the season, that nature's only bathed in red, green and yellow for just a couple of months a year here. He still remembers the smile that spread across her features after that, one that's almost an afterthought, a remembrance of a past she didn't quite remember, but missed all the same.

She walks ahead of him now, dressed in that big, soft sweater she kept in the bottom of her drawers. It's red, like the trees, like her hair, like the hues the setting sun paints in the sky. Her mind's floating up among those leaves, and he drifts behind her, unsure of whether he wants to look at her or scenery, because they're equally beautiful.

She returns to Earth for a moment, to him, when she glances over her shoulder at him and smiles softly, absently, lost in her own world. He notices that her eyes match the colour of the grass here, the contrast between the red and green bearing a striking similiarity to her. Or perhaps it was the other way around.

The mug in his hand is cold now, it has been for a while but he hasn't noticed. The smell of that sharp, pleasant spice she'd sprinkled on top of his coffee reaches his nose still; cinnamon, she'd called it. It mixes with the scent of fading leaves, the hint of dew, and underlying tones of warm wood. He can't get enough of it, and neither can she, if the way her pace relaxes even more is any indication. He's never seen her look so at home, so connected to the world around her. He can't get enough of that either.

The sun's dropped a little more past the horizon. The sky's fading from orange and yellow to violet and fuchsia; he only knows those names because she explained them to her the evening previous, where they'd watched the same scene unfold from the balcony of the beach house they'd rented for a week. He'd asked her how she knew, she grinned and showed him how to paint that night, just like he'd always wanted to learn.

He's so caught up in his own musings that he doesn't notice her stop, until he's only a few feet away from her. Her head's raised a few inches, her arms are limp at her sides, and she looks like she's home, really home. He just observes her, a soldier and artist in the same body, a young girl and a battle-hardened woman at same time, taking in everything around her. The sharp songs of birds sound overhead, coupled with the rhythmic beating of their wings. Her eyelids flutter closed, he catches the glimmer of orange sunlight off of them.

The wind picks up; her scarf ripples in time with her hair. He staves off the shivers that creep up on him, because he doesn't feel as cold as his body seems to be. The leaves flutter around them in an flowing, halting dance, and one catches on the loose knits of her sweater. He takes a step forward, then another, but she doesn't quite notice him, at least not enough to open her eyes.

He pulls the leaf out of the yarn, studies the colours of amber and tangerine that web across its surface, before letting it go. It skitters away, soon forgotten. He sets the cup on the ground, then brings her out of her reverie by wrapping his arms around her waist. She sinks into him easily, readily, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He presses his mouth to her cheek, she smiles faintly. She smells of icing sugar, of the pumpkin pie she'd tried to make by hand earlier, of wind. Her skin's pink from the chill and maybe excitement, maybe just bliss. She's cold to the touch.

Their breaths sync up, and her eyes drift closed again. She's happy, he knows, truly happy. He's wrong, he knows that too; there's a woman _underneath_ the soldier, a woman who still has her childhood to explore in these forests touched by autumn, a woman he's seen glimpses of, like the sun through the trees above, but he hasn't seen her completely, not quite yet.

There's no enemy waiting for them this time, their guns are laid to rest. It's just them and this galaxy that's waiting for them to explore, of their own will, at their own pace. Autumn, he decides, is a good place to start that journey.


End file.
